Chamber of Commerce goes from 3 million members to just 300,000 in one day.

[cal04]

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/14/chamber-membership/

As Mother Jones reported yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce consistently says that its membership is 3 million, even though it’s actually closer to 200,000. The reason for the artificial inflation is that the organization is counting the memberships of 2,800 state and local chambers around the country, even though many of these businesses have no relationship with the national organization. Some of these members are now protesting the Chamber’s numbers game:

“They don’t represent me,” says Mark Jaffe, CEO of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, which is a dues-paying member of the national group. … Jaffe also scoffed at the US Chamber’s oft-repeated claim to “represent 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions.” … “They are playing games” with their numbers, Jaffe said. “They don’t have half the businesses in America as registered, dues-paying members.”

– Jaffe’s objections to the US Chamber’s policies were echoed by Rob Black, vice-president of public policy for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. “We take a fundamentally different approach than the US Chamber,” he said, adding that while the national Chamber opposes the Waxman-Markey climate bill, “we support a market-driven cap-and-trade system.”

A day after this public scrutiny began, the Chamber is quietly backing down. At a press conference this morning, Chamber officials “repeatedly cited a membership of 300,000. That’s a tenth as many members as the Chamber claimed a day earlier.”



US Chamber Shrinks Membership 90%
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/10/us-chamber-caves-membership-numbers

Yo, Chamber of Commerce, You Speakin' For Me?
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/10/yo-chamber-commerce-you-speakin-me

[FrenchieCat]

1. Maybe they will get small enough so that they can be drowned in the bathtub.....

That would be a sight to see.

[loudsue]

8. Now THAT is a good idea!

:applause:

[LiberalEsto]

11. From your keyboard

to God's ears

[BadGimp]

2. Another organization taken over by the GOP money machine

[TheKentuckian]

9. Taken over? I always thought they were one and the same or that the CoC

was a branch of the Confederate party.

[glinda]

15. They did not start out that way but a few years back they were totally taken over

by big oil, pharma, coal, you name it. They have also had the tax-payers buy, build, renovate buildings in the highest volume spots usually in historic buildings. They have been ripping off the public and the Dem Party for ages now. They lie about how they represent themselves.

[glitch]

3. Crikes! That is some shrinkage. Like frightened turtles. nt

[myrna minx]

4. K&R n/t

[annabanana]

5. I can't tell you all how glad I am

that this outfit of bullies is finally getting some push-back.

[MadMaddie]

6. FANATASTIC!

Hope to see their coffers run dry too...

[patrice]

7. I'd bet Small Business is pro-Environment because their Kids are and because they

see opportunity in Alternative Energy technologies.

[newtothegame]

10. Who cares? Why is this a story? n/t

[jeffbr]

12. The "U.S." Chamber of Commerce is the biggest cheerleader for job outsourcing to India & China

They are the most un-American organization in Washington.

[myrna minx]

13. They ran some of the nastiest ads against Al Franken in 2008.

They are fiercely against the Employee Free Choice Act and the ads they aired against Franken implied that he was in cahoots with the "mob", you know like all unions are. :puke:

[mopinko]

14. the local joke

http://www.rogerspark.cc/

if ever a neighborhood did not need the us coc, it is us.